Number IV - Preparation & Brewing

As ever Number IV will be an ale, light golden brown coloured, with distinct hop character - some bitterness but much aroma and flavour.  It would be a bonus if there's a subtle fruity or ester flavour and for this I'll try dry hopping with Cascade pellets.  The alcohol content will be about 4% and there will be about 30 litres of it.  In fact just like No. XIII, the only difference being I'm going to swap the malts over - and add1Kg of Munich malt to try to get up to a full 30l fermenter.

 Ingredients & Notes

Compared to previous brews the grain bill will be a touch more at 7.5Kg of malt, to ensure it's got the alcohol content I'm after, and the hops are chosen by what I've got - Target & East Kent Goldings for the brew (bittering and aroma) and then for something a bit different I'm going to also dry hop with Cascade at 1g/litre in the fermentation barrel.

The Recipe
Malts:
4Kg Vienna malt - base 1 colour
2Kg Pilsner malt - base 2, light base
1Kg Munich, malty sweetness
500g Malted wheat for head retention
100g Sour malt to lower the pH and aid mashing

Hops
Boil:
50g Target  9.7% alpha, open packet from 2007

Aroma & Flavour, 5 minutes before end of boil
46g East Kent Goldings  4.95% alpha last 15 min

Dry
Cascade pellets 5.9% alpha at 1g/litre into brewing barrel before adding yeast.  29g added.

Adjuncts
15g Irish moss in the boil, last 15 minutes

Mash schedule

30 minutes each at 65C, 72C and 76C.
Boil 90 minutes.

Brewing

1. 17:30 - Started heating 18l water and grinding grains.  Used the drill for the grinding which worked relatively well.
2. Calculated that for 8Kg grain at ~25C will need to add ~12 litres water at 70C
3. As the water was a bit hotter than this I added 4l cold water, this was a bit too much perhaps
4. 18:30 Water @70C run onto grains, temperature stable at 65C - NOTE to overestimate a bit in future to compensate for cooling at the bottom of the tun.  Heat another 10l water to 90C.
5. 19:00 Run another 6l water onto grains - mash not hot enough so drain bottom and re-heat in pan
6. 19:15 Reached 72C more or less...
7. 19:45 Added more water, actually overflowed the tun.  Need to save a bit of space in future, probably best by avoiding the cold water at the start.  Still, with a full tun like this the mash looks good, not too thick, with this amount of grain.
8. 20:00 More heating and comfortably at 76C
9. 20:15 Swapped the excess I drained during the overflow, reheated the drain and added back to mash.
10. 20:30 Never was an iodine test so clear for complete conversion.  Happy!  Leave mash until 20:45
11. 20:45 Boil started - also pan on cooker.  Boiler too full, takes a long time to heat.
12. 23:00 Boil done, start cooling, added 4l cold water, primarily to cool the wort further, still too hot at 30C.
13. OG is about 1048, but then added another 2l cold water.
14. Added 29g Cascade hop pellets.
15. 24:00 All done, yeast pitched at 25C, hopefully not too hot.
16. 24:30 Signs of fermentation - magic!  That's fast!